From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 05:53:21 MST
In a message dated 12/20/99 1:58:21 PM Central Standard Time, lklaes@bbn.com
passes on a quote from Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot":
> We lack consensus about our place in the Universe. There is
> no generally agreed upon long-term vision of the goal of our
> species - other than, perhaps, simple survival. Especially when
> times are hard, we become desperate for encouragement,
> unreceptive to the litany of great demotions and dashed hopes,
> and much more willing to hear that we're special, never mind if
> the evidence is paper-thin. If it takes a little myth and ritual to
> get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot
> sympathize and understand?
Carl Sagan was one of my heroes and certainly belongs in the pantheon of
important cultural figures in the 20th century. The passage Larry shared
with us is a fine example of the kind of inspiring prose that made Sagan
rightly famous as an advocate of scientific humanism. But this paragraph
represents the point at which transhumanism departs from traditional humanism
and, ultimately, I believe, offers a real advance on what has come before us.
Transhumanists are building on the vision offered by traditional humanism
and, by offering glimpses of a potential that transcends "human nature",
rekindle the optimistic sense of purpose that has almost been extinguished
since the glory days of the first Enlightenment.
Much of the feeling of existential despair that grew out of the first age of
scientific humanism arose from the vision of mankind as an end-point of
mindless evolution. Even for those who could see a natural history for
humanity that would EVENTUALLY transcend our current state, the process that
would produce such transcendence was perceived as occurring so slowly that
individual humans might as well consider themselves at the end of a road
without any future potential. Robbed by science of a believable vision of
personal transcendence, individuals who embraced humanism ultimately found
themselves alone, facing a buzzing neon "No Exit" sign. It isn't surprising
that much of humanity rejected the humanist world view and retreated to
irrational submergence in simplistic conceptions of "volk",
pseudo-transcendent ideologies of class identity offering reassuring maps of
historical inevitability or syncretistic amalgams of the most comforting
elements of pre-modern "spirituality".
Transhumanists are engaged in the work of salvaging the energetic optimism of
humanism's first successes. Perhaps just in time, we have seen that science
has not brought us to an existential dead end, but rather that it offers the
tools to vault the fence that mindless evolution has erected across our path.
Our vision is but yet a tiny spark in the general philosophical darkness
that has accumulated in humanity's path. But that spark promises to become a
light that can illuminate a path leading out of despair and pointlessness.
If we can articulate our vision in ways that connect with history, we offer a
new hope, a new "generally agreed upon long-term vision of the goal of our
species", as Sagan put it. And with that, we can once again take up the
notion of progress that has been lost to so many in the 20th century.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:06:11 MST